Blog Archives

On the news yesterday morning, police were looking for a white van whose driver is suspected in a double homicide. And just the other night I was watching a movie where the hero was joking about a white van and duct tape.

Why is it always a white van? And why haven’t bad guys realized that driving a white van is a dead giveaway?

I’ve heard that white is cheaper when buying a vehicle. I suppose that is why the bad guys are always driving white vans. But, come on, bad guys, spend the extra money money for a colored van.

Another cliche that really gets to me is that old classic: the heroine in the stripper-high high-heel shoes trying to run from the killer. The broken heel, the twisted ankle and ultimately here it comes…the fall. Kick off those high heels, chick, and RUN!!!

Okay, my worse pet peeve when it comes to suspense cliches: The heroine has put up a heroic fight against an insane horrible killer. He’s beaten her, choked her, wounded her, killed most everyone she knows and stolen the family Bible.

And what does she do after she bests him? Does she finish him off? Nope. She turns her back and starts to walk away — without taking the gun, the knife, the duct tape, the bag of rags soaked in chloroform or the lamp base she cold-cocked him with earlier. She just turns her back, doesn’t make sure he won’t come after her, and… and you know what happens. He comes after her! While I’m screaming: Pick up the gun! Shoot him!!! Because let’s face it. Even if she manages to get away again and the police catch him, he’ll escape from prison one day. Or get out under some technicality. We all know he will want to finish the job he started. But then again that’s what sequels are for huh.

Why, I’ve asked myself do movies and even some books do these things? I was watching a movie about Alfred Hitchcock and the making of The Birds. During the filming, apparently Tippi Hedren asked why, as a relatively intelligent character in the movie, would she go up the stairs to the attic alone.

Hitchcock’s answer: Because I want you to.

The worst thing about the suspense cliches? They work. We think the woman running in the heels is nuts but we are on the edge of our seats yelling for her to run. Same with not finishing the guy off. Remember the movie Wait Until Dark. I think it was the first time that device was used. Worked didn’t it. Same with the scene from The Birds. I wonder how many people were yelling: Don’t. Open. That. Door!

As for white vans though…come on bad guys, wise up. (My apologies if you drive a white van.)

So what are the suspense cliches that you hate. Or love.

(Also my winners from the last two weeks are: Judy Morgan and Sarah Johnson. Go to my website at www.bjdaniels.com and email me so I can send you a book.)

Karin is traveling today, so the remaining gals here at Murder She Writes thought it would be fun to have another “Ask Us Anything!” Q&A. The rest of us will pop in all day to answer questions — about our books, reading, writing, television, movies … just ask.

My pal Bonnie visited me the other day, with the latest member of her family: a schnoodle she calls Abby Rhodes. Bonnie revealed that Abby had spent the first two years of her life as a shelter mutt. You could tell this, just by looking at the cute little thing: thin but not frail, a coat that lacked that best-of-breed sheen, one ear perched higher than the other…

Of yeah, and a nub where she once had a tail.

“It was broken, so the vet felt it should go,” Bonnie sighed.

But there was no regret there, at all. How could there be? Snuggled deep in the crux of Bonnie’s arm was, she felt, the dog she’d was meant to save.

Granted, Abby no longer has a tail to wag, but she can still give the lick of love.

We are told that all dogs go to heaven. That’s got to be true. Why else is “Dog”, God spelled backward?

I was raised around Dobermans. The ones my father bought came from the Mikadobe lineage, which boasts a long line of show dogs.

Our Mikadobes were family pets. Still, with their noble demeanors, Kazan I, II, and III could easily have been contenders. Legend has it that our very first Mikadobe, a female we named Midnight, saved my toddler sister’s life by pulling her out of the street by her diaper.

Unfortunately, my husband is allergic to Dobermans. When we married, we sated our pre-child nurturing instincts by shifting our allegiance to a pound puppy we named Cassie. This lab-dal (a cross between a Labrador and a Dalmatian, something we discovered several years and half a country away, when we were parked at a red light next to a pickup truck holding her male twin) was our spoiled little princess. Feeling guilty for having to leave her for our nine-to-five office gigs, we bought her a companion: a full-bred Airedale we called Tiburon, after one of our favorite little Marin County bayside towns.

Our worries that this older male would rule the roost was put to rest when we saw how easily Cassie banished him, every evening, from our bedroom.

Talk about a bitch.

Thank goodness, she soon came to love him, too.

No doubt Cassie resented the eventual births of our son and our daughter. But she was smart enough to get over it quickly, and to reinvent herself as their guardian, sleeping under their crib. They rewarded her by tossing her any veggies they refused to eat, first rom the trays of their high chairs, then slipping it to her under the table.

Lucky dog.

Our pets teach us that all God’s creatures have complex personalities; that they love and protect us fiercely, and forgive us easily.

Perhaps too easily, considering our own sins.

I guess that’s why I find it so easy to write a dog into every one of my novels.

Which brings me to this contest…

You’re introduced to one of my heroines, Donna Stone, in Guns and Roses, the Murder She Writes anthology. Since Donna’s name is an homage to those perfect television housewives of the 1950s, you can only guess the name and breed of the dog that is loved by the family Stone.

I have to tell you, I love our guest blogger today. JT Ellison and I have spent many an hour on the phone and over email, ever since we met through a crazy little experiment that she helped to found, called Killer Year… which went on to break ground by becoming the first debut author’s group “adopted” by well-known writers who were members of the ITW. She’s funny, sweet, sharp, and writes the brilliant Taylor Jackson novels, and her latest, THE IMMORTALS, just came out.

"Outstanding... potent characterization and clever plotting... Ellison systematically cranks up the intensity all the way to the riveting ending" - Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Now look, if you haven’t read Taylor Jackson, then you’re missing a seriously phenomenal series: procedural (Taylor is a detective) set in Nashville (and lots of southern characters) with a keen eye to detail and atmosphere and heart-stopping, finger-nail biting, can’t-stop-reading story. Check out more about the newest Taylor Jackson novel out below, and our contest… but for now, enjoy JT:

Sigh. If only we could apply the Pythagorean theorem to words. Just think of it, the ease of plugging A2 + B2 = C2 into your manuscript and watching all the 1s and 0s percolate, get red hot on the screen and suddenly pop up with an answer — Choose Frank, you imbecile!

Love triangles suck.

I became a writer from sheer necessity, as numbers began to look Greek to me around the same time as my advanced algebra teacher caught me kissing a boy in the hall before class and yelled at me. “You’re not in love, you’re in heat,” were his exact words. I was wildly insulted. I found myself neither yowling aloud nor turning in circles with my tail in the air spraying urine on passersby (though I was in my preppy handbook stage, but that hardly qualified.) Turned me right off quadratic equations, and I didn’t find the love again until I met up with Euclid and his lovely triangles in my sophomore year. But by then it was too late. I spent much too much time in geometry extolling the virtues of Cal Ripken’s ice blue eyes with a fellow student and popping out my contact lens so I could sneak into the girls’ bathroom for a smoke. Trigonometry was great, we were allowed to use our circles in class, and I loved the way the word cosine sounded in my mouth, (try it — cosine. Co… sine… sexy, yeah?) but by the time I hit calculus, boys, books, sports and stories were paramount and I could barely give the numbers my attention.

But back to eighth grade. Said kissing, and apparent early onset estrus, was quickly followed by my first love triangle. The other boy, who shall remain nameless to protect the innocent, was older, darker, taller and richer — by God, he was in high school and drove a Saab. A SAAB, people. In comparison, my current relationship seemed like mere puppy love. I mean really, what girl’s going to pass up an opportunity to be driven home instead of holding sweaty hands in the back of the bus, watching the cowboys do snuff and cough their lungs out, and wondering just what base made you cool and what base made you a slut?

I labored over the decision (not the bases, the boys. The bases were later. Ahem.) The guys were friends. The older boy a sort of mentor to the younger. But he was so damn charming, and invited me to go skiing with him (up to the mountains in his Saab…) Who was I to hinder fate? I went. We skied, we drank cocoa, I felt cool in my new blue moon boots. Eventually, toward the end of the afternoon, on the ski lift for the last run of the day, we kissed. It was magical. And I had to come back to earth (literally down the mountain, ah, the imagery slays me even now) and break up with the other boy, explain that somehow, without it being my fault, I fell in love with his friend.

I felt like a total heel. Still do, all these years later. The second relationship worked for a very long time, but eventually it too disintegrated, the vagaries of time, hormones and 3,000 miles of distance proved too much for its fragile beauty to withstand. We’re all Facebook friends now, because really, who doesn’t want to relive their most humiliating moments and painful decisions over and over and over?

My first love triangle proved to be painful for all involved. So when I approach the page with the concept, I am very, very careful. I know what it feels like to be the girl trying to make a choice. It’s not fun. No matter what, someone is going to get hurt.

That makes for a great story, because you’ve got a stellar opportunity to have character development. Pain makes your characters grow. And growing is what we’re all striving for in our fiction and hoping for from our characters, right?

But to have the logic and simplicity of math in the equation… We would know exactly what formula would work when presenting two love interests to a female lead. As it is, sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t. When I introduced James “Memphis” Highsmythe, Detective Inspector for the Metropolitan Police at New Scotland Yard, Viscount Dulsie, I knew I was about to shake things up a bit. But I had no idea the impact it would have. I’m hardly in Stephanie Plum or Bella territory (though if someone were to establish a Baldwin versus Memphis fan club, who am I to interfere?) but I was shocked at the reactions. My male readers HATED Memphis. Some of the women did too. Some liked him, it’s been a completely mixed bad from the feminine side. I attribute this to the eighth grader in all of us who found themselves in exactly the same pickle I did, and the boys were obviously on the receiving end. Makes perfect sense.

I’m working on the 7th novel in the series now, and Memphis is back, in a big way. He is a catalyst. But I can’t help but wonder what would happen if he were to become… more.

So tell me, who are the participants in your all-time favorite love triangles? Concrete examples please — I need to be in the right frame of mind to make all this work. A signed copy of my latest Taylor book, THE IMMORTALS, (or any backlist title, as you wish) will go to one commenter… plus, from Toni, a $25 gift card to an online bookstore of your choice. Comments through Saturday, noon, are eligible for the drawing.

Hi everyone… if you want to make a comment for the contest that started yesterday, go back one entry–but not before you read this GREAT guest blog by an absolutely wonderful debut author, Brad Parks.You’ll immediately like the guy and I know I’m going to be grabbing his book as soon as possible now. Brad Parks is an escaped journalist, having done time at The Washington Post and the (Newark, N.J. ) Star-Ledger as both a sports and news writer. A graduate of Dartmouth College, he is a washed-up jock, a veteran of community theater and a terrible gardener. But if you see him at a conference, he will be happy to serenade you. He lives with his wife and two small children in Virginia, where he’s currently at work on the next Carter Ross mystery.

Brad is the author of Faces of the Gone — a fabulous mystery. In the Library Journal’s starred review, they said:

“This is the most hilariously funny and deadly serious mystery debut since Janet Evanovich’s One for the Money. Former journalist Parks has learned the art of making words flow and dialog zing. Fans of the NFL’s Cleveland Browns will find the Brick City Browns street gang an added delight.”–Library Journal (starred review)”

And none other than Harlan Coben blurbed the front of his book with, “Terrific debut.”

But enough introduction. Let me let him tell you about himself and why having kids made him a better writer:

by Brad Parks

Between the diaper explosions, the mealtime tantrums, the middle-of-the-night shout-outs, the early-morning-wake-ups and the other joys of parenthood — none of which have been known to spur creative genius out of anyone besides perhaps Erma Bombeck — I never thought I’d type the following sentence:

My kids have made me a better writer.

At first blush it seems wildly counterintuitive. By way of introduction, my children are a 2 ½-year-old boy who enjoys running away from Daddy as fast as he can the moment he realizes there’s traffic nearby; and a sweet-as-a-gum-drop little girl who just turned one and whose current method of walking involves a terrifying amount of falling down.

They are lovely children, bright and beautiful — they take after their mother in both of these respects — and I feel utterly blessed to have them in my life, but as any parent of young children can attest:

They absolutely suck the life out of you.

Their little motors run non-stop, and the basics of keeping them fed, changed, alive and engaged is a thoroughly exhausting enterprise, mentally and physically. By 7 o’clock most nights, which is when the little dears have finally worn themselves out, my wife and I simply have nothing left. We take turns closing our eyes while we read our son his last books.

So how is it possible these wonderful-though-soul-sapping beings have made me a better writer?

Yeah, yeah, I suppose experiencing the joy and wonder of their births and early milestones have broadened my life’s experience and opened me to a greater depth of feeling … and all that other greeting card stuff.

No, what it really comes down to is they’ve changed how I view my writing. I used to think of writing as work. Now it’s my escape from the real work.

As I type this blog post, I’m sitting in a Hardees, which has become my favorite writing spot because 1) it is just far enough away from my house (about five miles) that I can’t hear my kids screaming; 2) it is the last place in American without wireless Internet, thus saving me from time-wasting myself; and 3) it has free Coke Zero refills.

I basically have three hours here. That’s how long my battery lasts (no plugs at the Hardees) and it’s about how long I can leave my wife alone with the kids on a Saturday without feeling incredible paternal guilt.

My Hardees time is the only writing time I’ll get today. I cherish it.

Because I know how hard writing time is to come by these days. In my blissfully selfish pre-child existence, I wrote whenever I pleased. Maybe it was before work (I was a full-time journalist while I wrote FACES OF THE GONE and the next scheduled installment of the Carter Ross series, EYES OF THE INNOCENT). Maybe it was during lunch. Maybe it was at night. It didn’t much matter: Other than the eight (or nine or ten) hours a day I devoted to the newspaper, my time was my own. I had the luxury of writing when the muse spoke to me, inspiration hit and Venus was rising in the third house.

Not anymore. Now I have this small-but-precious period each day in which I’m allowed to write — note the verb choice, “allowed” — and, through the restorative powers of Coke Zero, have the energy to do it. I’m conscious of the fact that I have to make the most of it.

And I’ve started to notice something: There are a lot of authors out there whose road to publication included hard time as a stay-at-home parent. I think of Sophie Littlefield (www.sophielittlefield.com) and Carla Buckley (www.carlabuckley.com), two authors I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know at conferences (and two other new authors imminently deserving of your attention). They both talked about how their careers blossomed when the kids went back to school because they found themselves maximizing their writing time. Nothing makes you realize what a privilege it is to write until you have a period in your life when you simply can’t do it.

This past winter, after my daughter was born, I was the stay-at-home parent while my wife went to work. (Oh, and let’s just get this out of the way: Yes, I’m a dude, and I stayed at home with a kid. I’m not under the illusion this makes me some kind of hero. Just a parent. It’s 2009. Let’s get over it people.)

Now, I guess I’m supposed to say I treasure the time I got to spend with my beautiful baby girl, that it bonded us forever and that I felt immense fulfillment nurturing my daughter through those critical early months of her development. But the reality is I was stuck inside a tiny house with an infant who was a lousy conversationalist and yet required the majority of my attention. It was pretty much a drag.

For the first four months, the only place she would nap during the day was strapped to my chest in a Baby Bjorn. And, like most babies, she napped a lot. At 6-foot-1, a (mostly solid) 185 pounds and 35 years of age, I fancied myself a rugged male of the species in the prime of his physical capacities… until carrying a 10-pound, power-napping bowling ball on my chest eight hours a day reduced me to a whimpering shell of a man crawling to a chiropractor for relief.

Best of all, if I sat down, she woke up. So I placed my computer on top of the television — we still have one of those old-fashioned, non-flat-screen kinds that you can use as furniture — and was able to do some work, an odd bit of freelance or some light editing of previously written copy. But real, original writing? With taught action and snappy dialogue and well-paced plot development and witty turns of phrase? Not a chance.

It was the longest winter of my life.

I didn’t resume writing again until this past June. My wife is an administrator at a boarding school, so she works part-time during the summer. We worked out a daily schedule where I’d write in the morning while she watched the kids, then we’d trade off and she’d go to the office in the afternoons. I attacked my writing eagerly each day, knowing I had to capitalize on what time I had, and by the end of the summer had finished the third installment of the Carter Ross series.

Now my kids are in daycare and/or pre-school full-time, but I live with the knowledge I’m only one phone call away someone needing to be picked up due to illness or injury. So I still find myself greedily protecting my writing time, valuing it as I never did before I had children. And that outlook has made me a better writer.

In what ways have your kids made you better? Or worse? C’mon, it’s time to give the little buggers credit (or blame)…

Featured on murder she writes

Bio:

Allison Brennan

Allison Brennan is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of nearly three dozen romantic thrillers and mysteries, including the Lucy Kincaid series and the Max Revere series. She lives in Northern California with her husband, five children, and assorted pets.